The integrated airport — A NextGen test bed

Abstract

The Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) will significantly increase the safety, security, and capacity of air transportation operations in order to handle the dramatic increases in air traffic that are forecast by 2025 New technology, procedures, and airport infrastructure will be required in order to evolve Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and aviation industry systems to meet these challenges. NextGen goals are to accommodate flight operator preferences, to the maximum extent possible, and to impose restrictions only when a real operational need exists to meet capacity, safety, security or environmental constraints. So the Air Traffic Management system should adjust airspace and other assets to satisfy forecast demand, rather than constraining demand to match available assets. The new capabilities that will be required to meet these goals will need to be developed and tested in a realistic environment to validate the expected benefits and to develop low-risk approaches to evolving today's systems to provide these new NextGen capabilities. Test beds provide a "microcosm" of NAS systems to incubate initial concept evaluation prior to larger-scale field trials at a desired airport area test bed or at higher density airports. The Integrated Airport project is a test bed that supports the evolution to NextGen through operational research, evaluation and demonstration of synergy among available and emerging technologies. The project will show the feasibility of accelerating the implementation of concepts and capabilities that can substantially improve the operational effectiveness of the National Airspace System (NAS) for its stakeholders.